Abstract
During life, many personal changes occur. These include changing house, school, work, and even friends and partners. However, the daily experience shows clearly that, in some situations, subjects are unable to change even if they want to. The recent advances in psychology and neuroscience are now providing a better view of personal change, the change affecting our assumptive world: (a) the focus of personal change is reducing the distance between self and reality (conflict); (b) this reduction is achieved through (1) an intense focus on the particular experience creating the conflict or (2) an internal or external reorganization of this experience; (c) personal change requires a progression through a series of different stages that however happen in discontinuous and non-linear ways; and (d) clinical psychology is often used to facilitate personal change when subjects are unable to move forward. Starting from these premises, the aim of this paper is to review the potential of virtuality for enhancing the processes of personal and clinical change. First, the paper focuses on the two leading virtual technologies – augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) – exploring their current uses in behavioral health and the outcomes of the 28 available systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Then the paper discusses the added value provided by VR and AR in transforming our external experience by focusing on the high level of personal efficacy and self-reflectiveness generated by their sense of presence and emotional engagement. Finally, it outlines the potential future use of virtuality for transforming our inner experience by structuring, altering, and/or replacing our bodily self-consciousness. The final outcome may be a new generation of transformative experiences that provide knowledge that is epistemically inaccessible to the individual until he or she has that experience, while at the same time transforming the individual’s worldview.
Highlights
UNDERSTANDING PERSONAL CHANGEHow can we use technologies like virtual reality or augmented reality to support personal and clinical change? A meaningful answer to this question requires an in-depth examination of the process of change
More severe cases of panic disorder with agoraphobia and social phobia are often not reached with existing treatments” “The results show that virtual reality (VR) does far better than the waitlist control, and similar efficacy between the behavioral and the cognitive behavioral interventions incorporating a VR exposure component and the classical evidence-based interventions
VRET can be useful in the treatment of PTSD that is resistant to traditional exposure because it allows for greater engagement by the patient and, greater activation of the traumatic memory, which is necessary for the extinction of the conditioned fear” “VR-based cyber-SIT cyber-SIT may play an important role in the future clinical psychology, but it is crucial to enhance the validation of this approach from a methodological point of view: controlled trials testing a greater number of participants are needed” “ preliminary findings suggest some positive results for VRET as a form of exposure treatment for PTSD, additional research using well-specified randomization procedures, assessor blinding, and monitoring of treatment adherence is warranted
Summary
How can we use technologies like virtual reality or augmented reality to support personal and clinical change? A meaningful answer to this question requires an in-depth examination of the process of change. The passage between stage c and d requires selfreflectiveness: an intense focus on the particular instance or experience creating the conflict [26] By exploring this experience as thoroughly as possible, the individual can relive and identify all of the significant elements associated with it (e.g., conceptual, behavioral, emotional, and motivational) facilitating their reorganization [24]. The paper will discuss their added value in transforming our external experience by focusing on the elevated level of personal efficacy and self-reflectiveness generated by their sense of presence and emotional engagement It will outline the potential future use of virtuality for transforming our inner experience by structuring, altering, and/or replacing our bodily self-consciousness (BSC)
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